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Today’s ride was to Yuma to see ‘family’. Kim’s former in-laws winter there and since
Yuma is only 80 miles from Quartzsite, we went for a visit. Dick and Shirley (former father- and
mother-in-law) live in McMillan (near Newberry in the U.P.) and go to Arizona
from about the end of November to whenever the snow is gone back home. Last
October or so, Kim got a call saying Dick was in the hospital in Petoskey for a
possible medical procedure. Kim got
divorced about 8 years ago and hadn’t seen Dick since then so he went up to visit. They had a good time reminiscing and Kim was
very glad he took the time to reconnect with him. About two weeks ago, Kim got another call
saying that Dick had passed away out in Yuma.
Shirley was still out there with her daughter Brenda and her
husband. Today was about going to Yuma
for Kim to reconnect with Shirley, someone who was a part of his life for 37
years. It was a good day.
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On
the ride back to Quartzsite, I noticed something round and white in the sky up
ahead. Road signs indicated that we were driving through the Yuma Proving
Grounds so I was fairly certain it wasn’t civilian. I called Kim’s attention to the thing in the
sky and we both offered up our suggestions…dirigible, helicopter, weather
balloon, hot air balloon…but neither of us could see it real good. Kim didn’t
have his binoculars, but my camera has enough zoom to get a closer look at it,
so as soon as the road had a pull-off, we stopped to check it out. A biker behind us did the same. He offered up his suggestion of what it could
be as I was taking pictures…and we debated whether or not it was moving
 |
| It's a bird..it's a plane..... |
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Curiosity
got the best of me and I did a Google search on dirigibles. I landed on the site insidehook.com for definitions of various types of flying
apparatus (Or is it appariti?):
Blimps:
A blimp is an inflatable vehicle that gets its shape from the
pressurized gases that fill it. Without
an internal rigid shape of its own, the lighter-than-air vehicle deflates when
that gas isn’t present.
Zeppelins: Unlike blimps, zeppelins have rigid
frames that retain their shape whether or not they are filled with gas. Classified as a rigid airship, a zeppelin
technically has to be produced by Germany’s ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik in
order to qualify as one.
Airships:
An airship is a gas-filled aircraft that’s powered, steerable and
lighter than air. Blimps and zeppelins
are both airships, one semi-rigid, the other fully rigid.
Dirigibles: A dirigible is not one of those large tubular wind instruments they play in
Australia. It’s an airship. They’re synonyms. The name comes from Latin dirigere: “to direct.”
Hot Air Balloons: Although similar to all of the above, hot air
balloons are not technically airships because of one fundamental difference:
while airships are steered by their drivers, balloons rely on the wind to take
them to their desired destination and change altitude levels to reach their
referred gusts.
The House from Up: It has a rigid structure but it isn’t exactly
steerable, so we’re not exactly sure.
Good flick, though.
Insight AND humor...gotta love that. 😉 Anyway, Kim wants to be all technical and
call what we saw a blimp and I’ll let
him, but I’m going with dirigible because it’s just a fun word to say. 😎
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Thoughts on late night bathroom runs: I
don’t mind getting up in the middle of the night when the bathroom is located 6
feet from my bedroom. Sure it interrupts
sleep but walking that 6 feet doesn’t involve major exercise so it’s usually
easy to get back to sleep, unless my brain is busy; but that’s a whole
different subject. However, I’m not a big fan of
middle of the night bathroom walks when I’m camping because not only is it dark but the walk usually serves as a full on wake up call to my body...oh, and let’s
not forget the Boogie Man lurking out there. Because of all that I usually lay
there and have a debate with myself as to the urgency of the need which only
serves to keep me awake anyway, so I might as well get up and go.
In this campground, we are camped in a site
directly across from the bathroom…44 steps from trailer door to bathroom door. Overall a very convenient place to be. But when the trailer is just the right amount of warm, my attire consists of PJs
and it’s the middle of the night when the urge to go wakes me up, the internal debate about convenience is real. Finally gave up on
talking myself out of it last night, put my jacket on and stepped out into the
night. I was surprised at how loud the
door creaked when I opened it because I don’t seem to remember it being loud
during the day. And my footsteps on the
gravel sounded even louder as I walked those 44 steps to the bathroom. But the
full moon that’s a hindrance to Kim’s star gazing was the perfect nightlight to
guide the way…no need for the flashlight, which is a good thing because I forgot
to grab it anyway. And the air, while
cooler than the trailer, wasn’t at all cold like I was expecting. I didn’t
linger or bask in the quiet stillness of the night, but I have to say it was
not an unpleasant experience… 🌜
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While
I’m on the subject of bathrooms, I don’t have a problem taking a shower in a
campground. Oh, I have standards and I
want the shower to be clean but beyond that it’s not an issue. However, I have 3 brothers and no sisters, so
I was never exposed to the communal clothes changing thing that sometimes
happens with sisters…I’m a bit modest when it comes to that. Suffice it to say
that mandatory showers back in gym class were a source of major stress for me. So,
no matter how small the shower/changing area is I will stay in it to towel off
and get dressed. Today as I was toweling
off in tiny cramped space, struggling to keep the wetness where it belonged
which was not on any of my clothes, I started thinking about what the perfect
campground shower set up would be, understanding the bathroom at home wasn’t on
the design table. Conclusions: I have seen some nice shower set
ups in various places across the country but nothing as nice, private and
spacious as the bathrooms at the Oklahoma City KOA. There is a central building with about 10
individual bathrooms, each maybe 6’x6’, with good lighting, a shower, toilet,
and sink w/mirror. You can step inside,
lock the door, take a shower, or go to the bathroom. And there is plenty of room to towel off and
get dressed. Oh, wait, that does sound
like the bathroom back home. 😏
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Bike
miles today: 158
I’ve seen some articles that point to the fact that there is at least one of these floating above Yuma Proving Grounds. Basically a balloon with surveillance equipment to help monitor the border.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System